Taiwan High Speed Railway - various issues and events

« on: Apr 13th, 2013, 11:02pm »

I was looking for the appropriate place to park a comment on the recent finding of an explosive device on a Taiwan High Speed Railway thread, and found we did not really have one on the subject here. Thought we did. I know that it has been in discussions several times over the last few years, but these were all put somewhere here and there.

Therefore I decided to start one specific to the Taiwan HSR. I will probably drag in some of the information stashed elsewhere as time goes on.

A few highlights from those sources:

The train was "local" no. 616, the 2 hour flat schedule with 6 intermediate stops between Zouying, the south terminal and suburban station for Kaohsiung, and Taipei.

As usual, there are some differences in the information between the various new sources. The highlights seem to be:

The device was apparently put on at Taichung and placed in one of the toilets in the train. It was contained in two of the fairly common rolling suitcases. A few minutes after leaving Taichung, a passenger noticed a strange odor, described as gasoline like in some sources. The railway police got on at Hsinchu. The suitcases were described as containing bottles of a "petroleum based liquid with some white-colored pellets and several self-timer devices." All passengers were evacuated at the next station (Taoyuan) and transferred to a later train.

One source stated that a team from the Criminal Investigation Bureau defused the device on board the train. It was also stated that a key link in the timing mechanism was missing, so the device was unlikely to have exploded even if not defused.

Also: "When police pulled the suitcases out of the train on to a platform, a type of liquid leaked out, reports said. Because it formed a kind of smoke, investigators assumed it was a type of strong acid, though further investigation would still be needed to determine its nature, officials said."

It was also reported that Kuomintang lawmaker Hsu Hsin-ying was on board the train, having gotten on at Hsinchu. There was some speculation that she may have been the target. KMT Legislator Lu Shiow-yen was also on the train.

Agree with Les. indeed troubling, and surely hope whover was responsible is identified and caught.

Logged

Re: Taiwan High Speed Railway - various issues and events

« Reply #4 on: Apr 15th, 2013, 6:10pm »

A correction in the last paragraph: I mistyped one of the names, using it twice. It should have read,

"It was also reported that Kuomintang lawmaker Hsu Hsin-ying was on board the train, having gotten on at Hsinchu. There was some speculation that she may have been the target. KMT Legislator Lu Shiow-yen was also on the train."

If there is more information out there, I will likely have it in a day or so.